Just got back from three weeks in Japan.

• this was the first time I genuinely felt like I could have a decent conversation in Japanese
• I had issues with tenses, forgotten vocabulary, mispronunciations etc but found that I could nonetheless get my point across and have a productive discussion
• my listening / immersion practice has really paid off as I felt like my listening comprehension has greatly improved

It was a lot of fun. I went to three areas:

• Tokyo: people are busy but I was able to practice a lot of functional Japanese: ordering food, asking questions, etc.

• Kochi: I love Kochi. Very few foreigners and people are nice and outgoing (for Japanese people that is). Most locals speak very little if any English. I really enjoyed spending time here and had lots of decent conversations including a long chat with an older gentleman in the onsen at my hotel. (He started the conversation or I wouldn't have spoken in the onsen). Tosa-ben took a little getting used to

• Kyoto: in my opinion not a good place for Japanese immersion. There's English everywhere and most people speak very good English. Most shopkeepers would immediately switch to English the moment they saw me even if I greeted them in Japanese. It honestly was a little depressing at times. Also tourists everywhere, many of whom clearly haven't spent much time learning about cultural norms in Japan. It was fun for sightseeing but I doubt I'll go back now that I've visited the palaces & Nintendo museum

All in all it was a great trip and I feel like it helped my language learning move forward.

Oh! And I bought some Japanese language manga. I finally know enough to be able to read it while only looking up one or two words per page. I'm about halfway through Sakamoto Days 1 and I'm genuinely enjoying the story without the language barrier getting in the way. Progress!